Moonlight in Brazil
by Rainbow Stevie
Summary: Last night before they start down the path of no return, and worlds collide. [Collection of connected oneshots]
1. Horatio

_Disclaimer: If I claim these characters as my own, may I be blinded by the blaze of a thousand Miami suns without protection from the Sunglasses of Justice; hell hath no fury like Ann Donahue (and Jerry Bruckheimer, Anthony Zuiker, CBS, etc) improperly credited._

_Notes (8/28): Yes. Yet another one on this theme, at least to begin with, but I'm hoping it will turn into a multi-part collection of one-shots from different points of view. If I manage to get this much off the ground, next scene is Eric's. _

_Spoilers: This is the first thing that popped into my head when I read spoilers for the season premiere, but it makes direct references only as far as the season 4 finale "One of Our Own." Everything else is purely my imagination_

_Word Count: 490, give or take_

**Moonlight in Brazil**

In sleep, he shifted facedown, arm draped out across her stomach, as he often did when it was too hot to hold her properly. Something was wrong this time, though. His hand groped through the darkness, seeking what he could not be found, until the movement woke him up. Horatio's eyes snapped open; disoriented, he tried to fathom the reason for the empty space before his mind filled in observational details – the bed was facing the wrong way, these weren't his sheets, the moonlight filtering in through half-closed blinds outside the window shone over Brazil, and Marisol was still dead.

The realization hit as hard as it always did, no matter how he tried to avoid it. His eyes closed once, only to slide open once more, knowing sleep wouldn't return. Wearily he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, gray T-shirt clinging limply to his body from oppressive heat that refused to relent even in this post-midnight hour. Shoulders hunched forward, he perched there for a minute trying to gather his thoughts before deciding it wasn't worth the effort, and dropped his head in his hands.

He'd been dealing with demons since the age of 17,trying to right the world while guilt dogged his footsteps and tragedy lay in ambush.Neither left him for long.They were enemies he couldn't confront, and consequently couldn't vanquish; the best he could do was keep the shadows at bay by pursuing some semblance of justice.

After a long minute, he raised it again and looked at the bedside table. Slightly bleary eyes skimmed over the glowing numbers on the clock, the standard-issue hotel lamp, his keys and gun, before settling on the one personal touch, the framed picture capturing her irrepressible smile. Sinking back, he stared at it with hooded, haunted eyes, then reached out and plucked it from its spot, bringing it in for closer study, remembering details the photographic image couldn't capture. It failed to provide anything close to comfort. Abruptly he turned away, cutting the memories off, and the picture frame was replaced without regard for the direction it faced.

Settling back on thin pillows with hands clasped behind head, Horatio watched a crack on the ceiling twist and reshape itself, forming optical illusions in the darkness, and contemplated what dawn would bring. Frankly, he didn't really have a plan. It had been important to get here first - act now, think later. They could make up the rest as they went along. Any rules were subject to change without notice; Riaz didn't play by them anyway.

Brain overloaded with grief and exhaustion far beyond jet lag, he found himself oddly transfixed by the way a small moth fluttering near the ceiling, so pale in color, kept vanishing into the dark corners. Couldn't help but wonder if the relentless reminders of the lives he didn't save would eventually swallow him the same way.


	2. Eric

(9/5) Spoilers: Still none, but should further sections be written, they'll be written and set in season 5 after the premiere airs on the 18th.

Notes: I tried to stick with past tense, I did, but my brain just refuses to work that way. I'm not always logical.

Word count: 765

**Moonlight in Brazil**

**Part II: Restless**

In the adjoining room, Eric hasn't even bothered with sleep. Blood running hot, the endless hours until dawn are an unbearable expanse of time. Pacing the room and forcing himself to sit still by turns, he occupies his mind by envisioning exactly how he'd like the man who ordered his sister's death to suffer. He imagines it in gruesome, painstaking detail until his hand actually trembles.He relishes the anger, because the minute he stops imagining the future, he'll start remembering what's past.

That's all he's been doing all night anyway, really. Remembering.

The funeral.

His elder sisters clinging to one another like lifelines while their husbands stood by helplessly. His mother, unable to stop sobbing. His father's countenance, usually so stern and composed, red-eyed and etched with misery. More friends than he'd ever dreamed she possessed; a veritable sea poured out to pay their respects. Most heartbreaking of all, the haggard faces of her former support group determined not to let her down, even though it's not their first or even second memorial service of the month.

He remembers how lost Horatio looked, keeping apart from the crowd, subdued. By unspoken agreement, the entirety of the team was in attendance, but even from them he'd remained distant, accepting a few condolences with hollow formality and little to say until they respectfully let him be. Head bowed and hands folded, eyes cast downward, he stood at the graveside, locked within himself.

They made her up beautifully, yet Eric's mind keeps exchanging the memory of the forgiving makeup at the wake with the washed-out pallor of her body lying in the hospital bed. For some reason, it's the latter that's burned into his brain. So much for trying to create a better image.

He remembers how afterwards, work was just work except suddenly every one of Ryan's words drove themselves under his skin like slivers, and by the third time he erupted at nothing more than the coffee pot's temperamental lid, Calleigh was already keeping out of his way. He asked for solo assignments and Horatio granted them without comment, while the two of them assembled an airtight case against Antonio Riaz (ultimately worthless) on the side. That's where his thoughts ought to be; that's what brought them to this country, thousands of miles from home, in the first place - to fix what their own government won't.

But still his mind won't stop, won't stop running over every memory of her, pausing on the bad more often than the good. Memories of childhood, of high school, sneak past the edges and he watches instead her first battle to eat after chemotherapy, coaxing her through spoonful by painful spoonful - a victory if she kept down half a bowl of soup. Feels her breaking down in his arms after yet another treatment in the endless round, naturally slender frame growing skeletal, begging him to make it stop or let her quit.

He brought her through eight months of that hell; he traded his bank account and borrowed on his job security to obtain whatever would keep her hope alive, keep her fighting until she was strong enough to handle it on her own. And fight she did, until she was free, but fate barely gave her time to celebrate before one bullet ripped everything away. Then she was right back where she started as he desperately dialed for help and even more desperately worked to keep her breathing until they both heard the siren of the ambulance approaching. He didn't realize at the time, or maybe just didn't want to, that what she said then would be the last words he'd ever hear from her. Her voice was weak and slightly slurred as she looked up, head cradled in his lap, but she managed to mumble, "It's okay now, right? They'll fix it…"

_Fix it, fix it, fix it_, has been echoing in his head for days now.

So he sits under the glow of a bedside lamp, methodically cleaning his gun again and again until its gleam rivals that of Ryan's, and then repeats the process. It's oddly soothing, if not particularly productive, and feels much better than another bout of gazing dully at the TV before realizing he forgot to turn it on.

Three hours until daylight, then two, and then he just stops. Fatigue hits him in a rush, overtaking everything in a matter of minutes, and as he staggers to the bed, collapsing on the mattress without bothering to pull back the covers, sleep blessedly washes the memories out of existence.


	3. Yelina

Spoilers: All I know, I learned from "Rio"…

Word count: 895

(9/29) Author's Notes:

1) And now I really mess with tenses by mixing past and present into the same chapter. Grammar nazis everywhere HATE me (my own Muse included).

2) I am reasonably competent in French. Not Spanish. So tell me if I properly translated the Spanish idiom for rose-colored glasses in here; it lacks a verb, but I only wanted to go for "everything in pink." (Or rose, or however it works in Spanish; seriously I'm clueless) Also, with the title, I was going for alone/lonely…is that right?

3) Is there more coming? Hmm…don't know. I like it as a 3-part, but I'm tempted to take this writing style and move into the next day. I'm thinking sequel.

* * *

**Moonlight in Brazil  
Part III: Sola**

Another night alone.

It's a pattern that's grown increasingly frequent over the last few months, just like in the old days, and she puts up with it; puts up with his silence some days and gruff answers on others, puts up with his dealing, his suspected cheating and God knows what else, and she hates herself for making excuses but somehow her situation warrants it.

It started with a few late nights here and there, her questions silenced with soft kisses, easy and evasive. And in the first flush of having him back, she saw what she wanted to see, _todo en color de rosa_. She washed away the last traces of Rick, escaped the complications with Horatio, and fell gratefully back into a love that, for a time, it seemed impossible she'd ever fallen out of.

Gradually, the nights got later, the hours more erratic, the color a little faded. She pushed aside her uneasiness, desperate not to squander their second chance, for he always seemed to make it home safely.

But he's never been gone three nights in a row, and she's sick to death of worrying.

In the open front room, Yelina crossed the tiles of the floor, cool against her bare feet, settled a small pillow on the floor-level windowsill and leaned back against the wall. Crossing her arms in the sleeveless, off-white nightgown, she gazed up and out through the paned glass and let herself be hypnotized by the soft crevices and shadows on the face of the full moon. It reminded her of when Ray Jr. was just a baby; when he fussed in the pre-dawn hours she rocked him in the chair from her own childhood under the glow of the moonlight. Once upon a fairy tale, that time.

Almost fourteen years later, nothing is simple. Ray Jr. isn't a baby anymore; the last thing he wants is his mother's protection, or as of late, even her opinion. He's becoming as secretive as his father, and she's watching her family fall apart around her. She's strong-willed, she's independent, but she can't save her husband from the lure of the drugs, nor her son from the fable of a hero.

It's been fourteen _months_ since she left Miami. This is her life now, and she accepts that the same way she accepts that a miracle, of sorts, can raise the dead and return a husband four years buried.

To the tune of a tree frog's chirp, she turned her head back to the mantle and let her gaze fall upon a wooden statue of Christ, its rough-hewn features made all more appealing by its individualized mistakes in craftsmanship. That's one thing about her new life; the city might have forgotten but the neighborhood breathes religion and it's allowed her to rekindle her spirituality. Sometimes the local church is the only place she can seek solace.

This isn't what she prayed for. For the last five years, she's clung to one certainty, that she and Ray Jr. had always come first in Raymond's eyes. Despite everything he did, he'd never meant to hurt them any more than Horatio had. Both brothers had only tried to protect her from the same truth. Through it all she'd cherished the memory of a devoted father, a loving husband. It was the one thing that the media circus, the ambiguous reports, even Suzie Barnum couldn't take from her.

For the last five months, her only certainty has been that the Raymond Caine she mourned is not the man to whom she's been returned. She sleeps with a stranger when she shares the bed at all, and his gaze never rests long on hers before sliding away. Guilt? Disinterest? Reality matters little in the powdered dust of broken promise.

Broken promise – not, she mused, unlike the one to her brother in law. The most recent letter from Horatio lay on the table, weeks old and still unanswered because her stubborn streak wouldn't let her give up yet. One way or another she was still determined to bring them back from the edge, and no one, least of all him, ever needed to know how close they had come to jumping from it.

There is a thump from down the hall, and then silence. She doesn't even have to turn her head to know her son is sneaking out again, that the window slipped and he's now waiting for silence to pass until he tries again, as if she doesn't know. Why do they always think she doesn't know? She could try to stop him, but short of placing bars on the windows, he'd be gone again in an hour. Perhaps it's not even worth trying to dissuade him anymore.

A minute later she jolts into action; she is still the parent and she is not giving her child free rein to seek his own destruction. "Ray!"

But by the time she gets there, the room is empty, the window still hanging open. After a moment, she shuts it against insects and the night air; the front door will be left unlocked for either's return. Until then, all that remains is her helpless whisper of a name hanging in empty space. "Ray." Husband, son; it doesn't matter. Her family is intact but she's never felt more isolated.

This precarious imbalance cannot hold indefinitely. Something will break, and someone will fall.


End file.
